KATE O'MARA by Johnny Bluenote
Tuesday 30 January 2024
T.S. Eliot
BURNT NORTON
Time present and time past
Are both perhaps present in time future,
And time future contained in time past.
If all time is eternally present
All time is unredeemable.
What might have been is an abstraction
Remaining a perpetual possibility
Only in a world of speculation.
What might have been and what has been
Point to one end, which is always present.
Footfalls echo in the memory
Down the passage which we did not take
Towards the door we never opened
Into the rose-garden. My words echo
Thus, in your mind.
But to what purpose
Disturbing the dust on a bowl of rose-leaves
I do not know.
Other echoes
Inhabit the garden. Shall we follow?
Quick, said the bird, find them, find them,
Round the corner. Through the first gate,
Into our first world, shall we follow
The deception of the thrush? Into our first world.
There they were, dignified, invisible,
Moving without pressure, over the dead leaves,
In the autumn heat, through the vibrant air,
And the bird called, in response to
The unheard music hidden in the shrubbery,
And the unseen eyebeam crossed, for the roses
Had the look of flowers that are looked at.
There they were as our guests, accepted and accepting.
So we moved, and they, in a formal pattern,
Along the empty alley, into the box circle,
To look down into the drained pool.
Dry the pool, dry concrete, brown edged,
And the pool was filled with water out of sunlight,
And the lotos rose, quietly, quietly,
The surface glittered out of heart of light,
And they were behind us, reflected in the pool.
Then a cloud passed, and the pool was empty.
Go, said the bird, for the leaves were full of children,
Hidden excitedly, containing laughter.
Go, go, go, said the bird: human kind
Cannot bear very much reality.
Time past and time future
What might have been and what has been
Point to one end, which is always present.
II
Garlic and sapphires in the mud
Clot the bedded axle-tree.
The trilling wire in the blood
Sings below inveterate scars
Appeasing long forgotten wars.
The dance along the artery
The circulation of the lymph
Are figured in the drift of stars
Ascend to summer in the tree
We move above the moving tree
In light upon the figured leaf
And hear upon the sodden floor
Below, the boarhound and the boar
Pursue their pattern as before
But reconciled among the stars.
At the still point of the turning world. Neither flesh nor fleshless;
Neither from nor towards; at the still point, there the dance is,
But neither arrest nor movement. And do not call it fixity,
Where past and future are gathered. Neither movement from nor towards,
Neither ascent nor decline. Except for the point, the still point,
There would be no dance, and there is only the dance.
I can only say, there we have been: but I cannot say where.
And I cannot say, how long, for that is to place it in time.
The inner freedom from the practical desire,
The release from action and suffering, release from the inner
And the outer compulsion, yet surrounded
By a grace of sense, a white light still and moving,
Erhebung without motion, concentration
Without elimination, both a new world
And the old made explicit, understood
In the completion of its partial ecstasy,
The resolution of its partial horror.
Yet the enchainment of past and future
Woven in the weakness of the changing body,
Protects mankind from heaven and damnation
Which flesh cannot endure.
Time past and time future
Allow but a little consciousness.
To be conscious is not to be in time
But only in time can the moment in the rose-garden,
The moment in the arbour where the rain beat,
The moment in the draughty church at smokefall
Be remembered; involved with past and future.
Only through time time is conquered.
III
Here is a place of disaffection
Time before and time after
In a dim light: neither daylight
Investing form with lucid stillness
Turning shadow into transient beauty
With slow rotation suggesting permanence
Nor darkness to purify the soul
Emptying the sensual with deprivation
Cleansing affection from the temporal.
Neither plenitude nor vacancy. Only a flicker
Over the strained time-ridden faces
Distracted from distraction by distraction
Filled with fancies and empty of meaning
Tumid apathy with no concentration
Men and bits of paper, whirled by the cold wind
That blows before and after time,
Wind in and out of unwholesome lungs
Time before and time after.
Eructation of unhealthy souls
Into the faded air, the torpid
Driven on the wind that sweeps the gloomy hills of London,
Hampstead and Clerkenwell, Campden and Putney,
Highgate, Primrose and Ludgate. Not here
Not here the darkness, in this twittering world.
Descend lower, descend only
Into the world of perpetual solitude,
World not world, but that which is not world,
Internal darkness, deprivation
And destitution of all property,
Desiccation of the world of sense,
Evacuation of the world of fancy,
Inoperancy of the world of spirit;
This is the one way, and the other
Is the same, not in movement
But abstention from movement; while the world moves
In appetency, on its metalled ways
Of time past and time future.
IV
Time and the bell have buried the day,
The black cloud carries the sun away.
Will the sunflower turn to us, will the clematis
Stray down, bend to us; tendril and spray
Clutch and cling?
Chill
Fingers of yew be curled
Down on us? After the kingfisher's wing
Has answered light to light, and is silent, the light is still
At the still point of the turning world.
V
Words move, music moves
Only in time; but that which is only living
Can only die. Words, after speech, reach
Into the silence. Only by the form, the pattern,
Can words or music reach
The stillness, as a Chinese jar still
Moves perpetually in its stillness.
Not the stillness of the violin, while the note lasts,
Not that only, but the co-existence,
Or say that the end precedes the beginning,
And the end and the beginning were always there
Before the beginning and after the end.
And all is always now. Words strain,
Crack and sometimes break, under the burden,
Under the tension, slip, slide, perish,
Decay with imprecision, will not stay in place,
Will not stay still. Shrieking voices
Scolding, mocking, or merely chattering,
Always assail them. The Word in the desert
Is most attacked by voices of temptation,
The crying shadow in the funeral dance,
The loud lament of the disconsolate chimera.
The detail of the pattern is movement,
As in the figure of the ten stairs.
Desire itself is movement
Not in itself desirable;
Love is itself unmoving,
Only the cause and end of movement,
Timeless, and undesiring
Except in the aspect of time
Caught in the form of limitation
Between un-being and being.
Sudden in a shaft of sunlight
Even while the dust moves
There rises the hidden laughter
Of children in the foliage
Quick now, here, now, always—
Ridiculous the waste sad time
Stretching before and after.
Monday 29 January 2024
Had the following email today...
Dear Gene,
I have just finished reading Granny Barkes Fell in Woolworth's.
Wonderful!!! All I can say is:
LUCKY
Given the existence as uttered forth in the public works of Puncher and Wattmann of a personal God quaquaquaqua with white beard quaquaquaqua outside time without extension who from the heights of divine apathia divine athambia divine aphasia loves us dearly with some exceptions for reasons unknown but time will tell and suffers like the divine Miranda with those who for reasons unknown but time will tell are plunged in torment plunged in fire whose fire flames if that continues and who can doubt it will fire the firmament that is to say blast hell to heaven so blue still and calm so calm with a calm which even though intermittent is better than nothing but not so fast and considering what is more that as a result of the labours left unfinished crowned by the Acacacacademy of Anthropopopometry of Essy-in-Possy of Testew and Cunard it is established beyond all doubt all other doubt than that which clings to the labours of men that as a result of the labours unfinished of Testew and Cunard it is established as hereinafter but not so fast for reasons unknown that as a result of the public works of Puncher and Wattmann it is established beyond all doubt that in view of the labours of Fartov and Belcher left unfinished for reasons unknown of Testew and Cunard left unfinished it is established what many deny that man in Possy of Testew and Cunard that man in Essy that man in short that man in brief in spite of the strides of alimentation and defecation is seen to waste and pine waste and pine and concurrently simultaneously what is more for reasons unknown in spite of the strides of physical culture the practice of sports such as tennis football running cycling swimming flying floating riding gliding conating camogie skating tennis of all kinds dying flying sports of all sorts autumn summer winter winter tennis of all kinds hockey of all sorts penicilline and succedanea in a word I resume and concurrently simultaneously for reasons unknown to shrink and dwindle in spite of the tennis I resume flying gliding golf over nine and eighteen holes tennis of all sorts in a word for reasons unknown in Feckham Peckham Fulham Clapham namely concurrently simultaneously what is more for reasons unknown but time will tell to shrink and dwindle I resume Fulham Clapham in a word the dead loss per caput since the death of Bishop Berkeley being to the tune of one inch four ounce per caput approximately by and large more or less to the nearest decimal good measure round figures stark naked in the stockinged feet in Connemara in a word for reasons unknown no matter what matter the facts are there and considering what is more much more grave that in the light of the labours lost of Steinweg and Peterman it appears what is more much more grave that in the light the light the light of the labours lost of Steinweg and Peterman that in the plains in the mountains by the seas by the rivers running water running fire the air is the same and then the earth namely the air and then the earth in the great cold the great dark the air and the earth abode of stones in the great cold alas alas in the year of their Lord six hundred and something the air the earth the sea the earth abode of stones in the great deeps the great cold an sea on land and in the air I resume for reasons unknown in spite of the tennis the facts are there but time will tell I resume alas alas on on in short in fine on on abode of stones who can doubt it I resume but not so fast I resume the skull to shrink and waste and concurrently simultaneously what is more for reasons unknown in spite of the tennis on on the beard the flames the tears the stones so blue so calm alas alas on on the skull the skull the skull the skull in Connemara in spite of the tennis the labours abandoned left unfinished graver still abode of stones in a word I resume alas alas abandoned unfinished the skull the skull in Connemara in spite of the tennis the skull alas the stones Cunard tennis... the stones... so calm... Cunard... unfinished
Congratulations,
Betty Hetherington - Smythe
Friday 26 January 2024
In Major Address, Pope Tells Dicastery: Bless The Person, Not The Union
From the Vatican:
In an address to the plenary assembly of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, Pope Francis discusses the Sacraments, human dignity, evangelisation, and Fiducia supplicans.
By Joseph Tulloch
Pope Francis addressed the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith on Friday, as the department brought its annual plenary assembly to a close.
Thanking officials for their “precious work”, the Pope recalled that, in his 2022 reform of the Roman Curia, he divided the Dicastery into two sections, one concerned with Doctrine and the other with Discipline.
It was the former subject, the Pope said, that he wanted to touch on in his address, and he offered a number of thoughts organised around three words: ‘Sacraments’, ‘dignity’, and ‘faith’.
New document from DDF
The first word that Pope Francis touched on in his address was ‘Sacraments’.
The Sacraments, he said, “feed and make grow the life of the Church”, he said, and thus require “special care” on the part of those who administer them.
“Let us,” the Pope urged the DDF officials, “love and cherish the beauty and saving power of the Sacraments!”
Pope Francis then moved on to discuss dignity, noting that the DDF is “working on a document on this subject.“
“I hope,” he said, “that it will help us, as a Church, to always be close to all those who, without fanfare, in concrete daily life, fight and personally pay the price for defending the rights of those who are disregarded.”
Proclaiming the Gospel today
The Pope’s third subject, faith, was the one he dwelt on for the longest period.
“We cannot hide the fact,” he said, ”that in large areas of the planet, faith, as Benedict XVI put it, no longer constitutes an obvious prerequisite for common living.”
Indeed, Pope Francis noted, faith is often “denied, mocked, marginalised, and ridiculed.”
The proclamation and communication of faith in today’s world, he said, must therefore take a number of factors into account.
In particular, Pope Francis specified the “new urban cultures, with their many challenges but also the unprecedented questions of meaning they raise”, the need for “missionary conversion of ecclesial structures”, and, finally, “the centrality of kerygma [‘proclamation’] in the life and mission of the Church.”
“It is here,” the Pope said, “that help is expected from this Dicastery.”
Pastoral blessings
It was “in this context of evangelisation,” Pope Francis continued, that he wanted to mention the recent Declaration Fiducia supplicans.
The purpose of the “pastoral and spontaneous blessings” discussed in the Declaration, the Pope stressed, is to “concretely show the closeness of the Lord and the Church to all those who, finding themselves in different situations, ask for help to continue—sometimes to begin—a journey of faith.”
In this regard, the Pope emphasized two points.
Firstly, he said, “these blessings, outside of any liturgical context and form, do not require moral perfection to be received.”
Secondly, he noted, “when a couple spontaneously approaches [a minister] and asks for them, he is not blessing the union, but simply the people who together have requested it.”
“Not the union,” the Pope stressed, “but the persons, naturally taking into account the context, sensitivities, the places where one lives, and the most appropriate ways to do it.”
Thursday 25 January 2024
Mark 16:15-18 |
William Congdon, Conversion of St. Paul, 1961, oil on fiberboard, 43 1⁄8 x 50 1⁄4 in. (109.5 x 127.6 cm.), Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of S.C. Johnson & Son, Inc., 1968.52.4
| First reading | Acts 22:3-16 © |
|---|
'Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?'
Paul said to the people, ‘I am a Jew and was born at Tarsus in Cilicia. I was brought up here in this city. I studied under Gamaliel and was taught the exact observance of the Law of our ancestors. In fact, I was as full of duty towards God as you are today. I even persecuted this Way to the death, and sent women as well as men to prison in chains as the high priest and the whole council of elders can testify, since they even sent me with letters to their brothers in Damascus. When I set off it was with the intention of bringing prisoners back from there to Jerusalem for punishment.
‘I was on that journey and nearly at Damascus when about midday a bright light from heaven suddenly shone round me. I fell to the ground and heard a voice saying, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?” I answered: Who are you, Lord? and he said to me, “I am Jesus the Nazarene, and you are persecuting me.” The people with me saw the light but did not hear his voice as he spoke to me. I said: What am I to do, Lord? The Lord answered, “Stand up and go into Damascus, and there you will be told what you have been appointed to do.” The light had been so dazzling that I was blind and my companions had to take me by the hand; and so I came to Damascus.
‘Someone called Ananias, a devout follower of the Law and highly thought of by all the Jews living there, came to see me; he stood beside me and said, “Brother Saul, receive your sight.” Instantly my sight came back and I was able to see him. Then he said, “The God of our ancestors has chosen you to know his will, to see the Just One and hear his own voice speaking, because you are to be his witness before all mankind, testifying to what you have seen and heard. And now why delay? It is time you were baptised and had your sins washed away while invoking his name.”’
Wednesday 24 January 2024
Tuesday 23 January 2024
Mark 3:31-35 | |
 | |
The Throne of God, Painted by Sister Gertrude Morgan (1900-1980), Executed in 1968 Oils and pastels on canvas © Christian Art | |
Gospel Reading | |
The mother and brothers of Jesus arrived and, standing outside, sent in a message asking for him. A crowd was sitting round him at the time the message was passed to him, ‘Your mother and brothers and sisters are outside asking for you.’ He replied, ‘Who are my mother and my brothers?’ And looking round at those sitting in a circle about him, he said, ‘Here are my mother and my brothers. Anyone who does the will of God, that person is my brother and sister and mother.’ | |
Reflection on the painting | |
Today's Gospel passage makes for quite uncomfortable reading at first. It seems that Jesus is somehow ignoring his family. But of course he isn't. His family is described twice in this short passage as being on the 'outside'. They are indeed physically outside the building Jesus was in. In that sense they are 'outsiders'. This implies that those sitting in a circle with Jesus are on the 'inside', the insiders. The point Jesus is making here is simply that being on the 'inside' is not just a question of location, but of relationship. That relationship also is not by blood. That relationship to be on the 'inside' is by following and engaging with Jesus. To be a Christian is to enter inside a new family, a larger family, linked by strong bonds, united in Christ. In the art world over the years I have often heard about certain artists being 'outsiders'. The term 'outsider' in the arts carries both a positive and a negative connotation. On the positive side it can mean that the artist carries a certain rebellious streak, an aversion to the mainstream, which then gets celebrated. But in the negative sense, being an outsider can also mean that the artist gets snubbed by the mainstream galleries, art critics and collectors. Those outsider artists are just not part of the inner circle, which at times can be elitist. A good example of such an 'outsider' is Sister Gertrude Morgan who painted between 1940 and 1980, in her own unique, non-mainstream way. She simply painted these lovely innocent, folk art canvasses, which were largely dismissed at the time. She was on the outside of the art world, yet a true 'insider' with Jesus, moving her brush for his glory… Because we are adopted brothers and sisters of Jesus, his heavenly Father is our heavenly Father, and we also call on the mother of Jesus as our mother. As a church, we are indeed privileged to be members of a very special family! |
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